‘Proper English’ Always Evolves
by Jordan Cooper
In America we speak one of the most complex languages in the world. We use it when we pick up the telephone. We use it when we send an e-mail message. We use it when we write a letter. We were left speechless before Alexander Graham Bell wanted to say ahoy when a phone was answered. That greeting flopped but Thomas Edison made hello famous from being a rare variant of hollo and hallo.
Sometimes it’s as sweet as some oven-baked cookies when we hear the person on the other end say hello today. English is also the originator of other languages that are spoken by immigrants such as Hinglish and Ebonics. We added twerk to our English dictionaries to tweak our English lexicon for dirty dancing. We added bling to our dictionaries to give another colloquial word for our glistening jewelry.
Still we have people that are named pundits professionally that call Muslims and other people that wear head dressings ragheads when the name pundit derived from Hindi. Whoa, who are the ‘learned ones’ now. Then we ‘import’ safari from Swahili and put our full undivided attention on removing many of the vital resources from the countries that tend to speak it most frequently. Gosh, sometimes the Hindi word thuggery does apply to us.
Proper English cannot be defined in absolutist terms; or as a legal scholar would say strict textualist terms. Languages, technology, and people adapt and advance at all times. The word book was created in the 900s. We close the book on people too speedily before discovering more about them.
There will always be new words to English irregardless of whether we define ourselves as prescriptivists ,descriptivists, or moderates. We must accept those expressions as newcomers to our language and not spurn those that wish to be English speakers. We shouldn’t step on each other’s feet when people are trying to be part of the illustrious American winning culture. That would be wack.
Jordan Thomas Cooper is a 2015 graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in History and a 2010 graduate of the Real Estate School of Success in Irmo. He is the first African-American to serve in both the governor and lieutenant governor’s office as an aide and first to serve in the Inspector General’s Office in S.C. (Haley) He served as the first black staffer on a GOP presidential campaign in S.C. (Perry 2011) He happens to be the second black presidential campaign speechwriter in American History and the first for a GOP presidential campaign (Bush 2015). He also played football for Coach Steve Spurrier.
graphic via shutterstock.com